31 National Security Experts Press Bush For Tougher CAFE Standards

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - A group of former national security officials Monday took up the cause of weaning U.S. drivers from their oil addiction -- normally the realm of environmental groups -- and asked the Bush administration to spend $1 billion on lighter, more fuel-efficient automobiles.

Retail U.S. gasoline prices now averaging above $2 a gallon make U.S. reliance on foreign suppliers like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia a looming national security crisis, a group of 31 national security officials said in a letter to President Bush. “This really constitutes a national security crisis in the making,” said letter signer Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, a thinktank, and a former Defense Department official under former President Reagan.

Other signers included Robert McFarlane, Reagan’s national security advisor, and James Woolsey, Central Intelligence Agency director under President Clinton. In an uncharacteristic move, the security experts sought input from groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, which have long lobbied for more fuel-efficient cars.

“It’s strange bedfellows but this is actually the real American majority,” said Nicole St. Clair, a spokeswoman for the NRDC. “It’s common sense.” Policymakers should address rampant oil demand from gas-guzzling vehicles, and stop trying to solve the problem by opening land like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, she said."

EDIT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7320033/

[Massacure]

1. I hate the idea of CAFE.

All cars should get the required amount, not just the average.

[phantom power]

3. Still, the CAFE standards worked a lot better than nothing.

The main failure was the "light truck" loophole. Essentially, this loophole could be considered the single thing that made the SUV debacle of the 1990s possible.

[YankeyMCC]

2. Unfortunately

"experts" and "facts" are just annoyances to the Bush administration.

[FloridaPat]

4. Bush threw out any promise of higher mileage cars when he first to

into office. He put all the money into fuel cells. He has no intention of depriving the oil companies of any money regardless of what it does to the economy or our pocket books.

[rfkrfk]

5. don't ask for a tougher number

Why do greenies insist on trying to raise the Cafe
on cars from 27.5 MPG to 27.5 MPG. {or whatever the numbers are}

Try to set some minimun MPG for SUVs and pickups.
The trick is, we need to invent some 'distinction' between
passenger and comercial vehicles, otherwise, the
SUVmakers will say, last year's SUV is now a commercial truck,
and is exempt from Cafe.

Whatever happened to cars?
Perhaps people are old, overweight, unfit,,,
have fond memories of riding in a school bus,
so they now prefer a vehicle that you need a stepladder
to get in. WTF?

{I should tell people that I don't like front wheel drive,
when Formula One goes FWD, I'll reconsider}
The fact there there are few decent, medium RWD cars
with good power, is not helpful.
Demanding that a few minicars go from 50 tp 51 MPG,
is not what we should want.

Lets say I want a nice car with a V-8 that gets 25 MPG.
Effectively, greenies are saying. "F you. You can't have that.
Your choices are, a POS front wheel drive with a six {or more
likely a four} that gets 27 MPG,
or a SUV that gets 10 MPG".

[rfkrfk]

6. edit, should have been, 27.5 to 27.7 , n/t

[midnight armadillo]

7. "Greenies"?

By "greenies" you mean people who believe that the health of our environment is crucial to the health of people and human societies? Interesting choice of terms.

Lets say I want a nice car with a V-8 that gets 25 MPG.
Effectively, greenies are saying. "F you. You can't have that.
Your choices are, a POS front wheel drive with a six {or more
likely a four} that gets 27 MPG, or a SUV that gets 10 MPG".

I would make the following argument: the US, and people in general, but the US in particular (since we're the most profligate users of resources in the world) simply has to adjust its market expectations to the environmental reality. The oil will run out eventually, we're trashing our environment (would you shit in your own bed?), and increasing the gas mileage of our vehicles is a small step in the right direction. Honda & Toyota have clearly demonstrated with the new Lexus RX400h and the hybrid Accord that high performance, safety, and efficiency are not mutually exclusive. I'd even support a mandatory minimum efficiency for consumer vehicles, AND one for commercial ones as well.

You want a V8 and 25mpg? Get a new Corvette, RWD, 400 hp, 28 mpg highway.

And since when is FWD crappy? Come drive in the snowbelt some winter with your RWD musclecar and you can watch the tail lights of my turbo four-cyl FWD Saab disappear around the bend while you fishtail all over the road. ;-)

[phantom power]

8. The "light truck" classification is weight based, so

the auto companies can't just arbitrarily declare an SUV "commercial".

Also, the "greenie" organizations have been specifically attempting to close the loophole for light-trucks for some years now, since that loophole is almost exclusively responsible for the decline in (average) gas mileage in the cars that Americans drive since the 80s.

[rfkrfk]

9. What are enviro groups asking for?, light truck loophole

Maybe, I should not have used the word 'commercial'.

What do enviro groups suggest, as to how to close the
light truck loophole? In addition to weight, I would suggest,
mandatory features that make the vehicle, --> obviously <--
a work vehicle, to be a 'light truck', but I don't
have any suggestions right now.

--------
to post 7
FWD is nice in the snow, for starting from a stop.
RWD, with automatic, is bad in the snow, when applying
brakes, the fronts can lock, with the rear wheels still turning.
That said, {from memory} the popularity of FWD seemed to coincide
with the popular introduction of 'rack n pinion'.
Oldfashion RWD 'steering box', was kinda OK.
Newfashion FWD 'rack n pinion', is sorta OK, I guess.
Those two, cannot be compared as to the steering feeling
of a RWD with rack n pinion.

[phantom power]

10. Currently, there is *no* mileage standard for vehicles over

a certain weight. I forget what that is, but almost all SUVs (and also minivans, I think) are above that weight.

Closing the loophole would be done by increasing the upper limit that the current CAFE standards apply to. So, for example, now it might read "average fleet mileage must be 27.5mpg, for all vehicles up to 2 tons." But we change it to "....up to 4 tons."

I think that if we did this, we might want to increase mileage figure. Well, actually I would prefer not to, but I'd be willing to make some adjustments in the name of practicality. If automakers applied hybrid tech to all vehicles, it might be feasible to keep fleet mileage at 27.5, even including SUVs.

[rfkrfk]

11. I don't think, that MPG standards for 8000 lb SUVs, would help

In my opinion, the goal is, to get people to
drive cars, not Junior Freightliners.

If you make adjustments for heavier vehicles,
that is an indirect encouragement to buy
a big vehicle.

repeating, I think we need to make some distinction
between 'personal' vehicles, and business.
That won't be easy to do.

[dyermaker]

12. Could someone please post this or tell me where it's being discussed?

Sorry for butting in this thread but I feel this needs attention.
I am trying to find a discussion on this. I am too new to post this.
Does anyone know where a discusion about this is? If not could someone please post it?
This is an outrage!!! This must be stopped and never happen again!

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/17571222?sour ...

Massive seal cull begins

By Paul Sims, Evening Standard
30 March 2005

Thousands of hunters armed with clubs, rifles and spears have begun the world's largest seal cull on the ice floes off eastern Canada.


Turning the ice red with blood, they killed hundreds of pups during the first day of the annual harp seal hunt.

The cull, which has been the target of protests since the 1960s, will mean the slaughter of up to 320,000 young seals on the floes and islands around Quebec's les de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

"It's just horrific out there," said Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States. "There is blood all across the ice and seal carcasses as far as the eye can see. We've seen seals that were moving around and breathing, that have been left in these piles, some left conscious and crawling."

Animal rights campaigners, who claim the pups are often skinned alive, have begun a boycott of Canadian seafood products and are planning protests until the end of the cull on 15 May.

Despite an import ban imposed in the United States and the European Union, a growth in demand for seal pelts from eastern Europe and China led the Canadian government to issue a quota in 2003 that allows hunters to kill 975,000 seals over three years.

Canada says the seal population is "healthy and abundant" and three times the size it was in the Seventies.